Digital Storm Bolt Small Form Factor Gaming PC Review

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Introduction and Specifications

Gaming PCs come in all shapes and sizes, but the small form factor gaming rig is not one that you see all that often. When it comes to tablets, notebooks and small form factor PCs, “thin and light” may indicate the latest and greatest in design and mobile components, but when it comes to gaming, a lithe chassis can be indicative of deep compromises on the performance inside.

Digital Storm has tackled the task of building a system that offers both high-performance parts and a small chassis with the Bolt series of custom PCs. Indeed, they nailed it on the compact size; the Bolt’s case measures just 3.6"(W) x 14"(H) x 15"(D), and while the components inside the Bolt we tested aren't the highest-end parts that money can buy, they're still fairly impressive.

There are four levels of Bolt systems, from the Level 1 starting at $999 up to the Level 4 at $1,949. Digital Storm sent us the Level 3 to test out ($1,599), and this version includes an Intel Core i5-3570K (overclocked to 4.2GHz), 8GB DDR3-1600MHz of Corsair Vengeance Series memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2GB) graphics card.

Digital Storm paired a 60GB CorsairSSD with a 1TB hard drive (7200 RPM) for a nice one-two combination of speed and storage capacity, and the optical drive is a slim DVD/CD 8x Multi drive.

All of the above is connected to a Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI motherboard, which features a fine assortment of rear I/O ports including a PS/2 port, two HDMI ports, DVI-I, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of Gigabit LAN ports, an optical S/PDIF port, two antenna connectors, and five audio jacks.

There are also two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and mic/line in jacks mounted on a side panel. Typically, these are mounted on the front of the case, but Digital Storm made the interesting design choice to tuck them off to the side.

Normally, you’ll get an “accessories box” and a Digital Storm Binder with documentation and installation discs, but because we have a media test unit, Digital Storm didn’t send us all those goodies. So it goes.

Before we dive into our benchmark testing, let's take a closer look at this rig.